Introducing the 2021 Chroma Zone Muralists
The Creative Enterprise Zone and Forecast Public Art are proud to announce this year's line-up of muralists for the 2021 Chroma Zone Mural & Art Festival.
Holly Miskitoos Henning Garcia
@miskitoos | @citymischief
Marten Falls Anishinaabe First Nation | Constance Lake Oji-Cree First Nation
Holly Miskitoos Henning Garcia is an active visual artist and muralist who is a Lead Organizer for a BIPOC artist collective called City Mischief Murals in the Twin Cities area. She uses art to elevate community voice, healing, and advance change. She has been part of several community arts-based events and mural projects throughout the United States, Canada, Africa, and Mexico. She uses acrylic paint, aerosol paint, traditional Native American art forms, and dance as a personal and political tool to address, explore and portray contemporary indigenous struggle.
Aaron Johnson-Ortiz
@aa.johnsonortiz
Aaron Johnson-Ortiz is a Mexican-American/Chicanx artist based in St. Paul. His art focuses on labor rights, immigrant rights, and the transnational Latino experience. Originally from Minnesota, Aaron grew up in Guatemala and Chiapas, Mexico. His “Workers United In Struggle” mural was named “Best Mural” by City Pages in 2018. For his day job, Aaron is the Director of Arts & Cultural Engagement at CLUES (Comunidades Latinas Unidas en Servicio), where he curates a Latino-focused art gallery and directs programming, including a folk arts program, a muralism apprenticeship, and community workshops. In his free time, he enjoys backpacking along Minnesota’s North Shore with his dog Aura.
Katrina Knutson
@katrinak612
Born and raised in Minneapolis Katrina Knutson is a painter, printmaker, illustrator, and active community muralist. She is inspired by urban landscapes, resistance, and resilience. She works as a teaching artist in many communities across the state of Minnesota.
Rock “Cyfi” Martinez
@cyfione | cyfiart.com
Rock “Cyfi” Martinez is a visual artist and muralist born in Tucson, Arizona. He now resides in Minneapolis. As a self-taught artist, he developed his craft by learning alongside other graffiti writers in his community. This grassroots education and the trials that come from working in a street-culture medium outside of the traditional scope of fine art influenced his understanding of public places and spaces — namely who they are for, and by extension, who was not welcome. Throughout his body of work he explores this tension and seeks to amplify the voices and narratives of those who have been disenfranchised and marginalized throughout history. He draws on his Mexican American and Indigenous heritage to comment on the social, cultural, and natural history of site-specific surfaces, often using allegory, abstraction, and pop art devices to layer meaning.
Stop by the Chroma Zone Open Street Celebration this Saturday, May 22 and watch as Cyfi transforms a south wall at the The Wycliff, 2327 Wycliff St.
Marlena Myles
@mylesdesigns | linktr.ee/mylesdesigns
Marlena Myles is a self-taught Native American (Spirit Lake Dakota / Mohegan / Muscogee) artist located in St. Paul. Her art brings modernity to indigenous history, languages and oral traditions. Growing up on her traditional Dakota homelands here in the Twin Cities, she enjoys using her artwork to teach Minnesotans of all backgrounds the indigenous history of this place we call home.
Peyton Scott Russell
 @houseofdaskarone | houseofdaskarone.com
Minneapolis-based artist, Peyton Scott Russell has a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and for over three decades has been a professional artist and arts instructor. The 1984 the film Style Wars introduced Peyton to graffiti art and had a profound effect on him. From that point on, he devoted his time and energy to graffiti art. Peyton has also taught and directed classical visual fine arts with nontraditional art programs and encourages students to be professional artists by focusing on portfolio development, artistic interpretation, and exhibition. Today, through assistance from a Bush Foundation Fellowship (2012–2014), Peyton is focused on his new arts program, SPRAYFINGER®. He is dedicated to teaching, studying, and practicing Graffiti: The Art of Creative Lettering™. His mission is to increase awareness of graffiti as a teachable art form by working with schools, teachers, and artists on curriculum design, outlines, and lesson plans to deepen the understanding of a long-misunderstood art form.
Alex Smith
@computershock
Alex Smith is an artist, designer and educator based in Saint Paul. His work ranges from murals to T-shirts, and is deeply rooted in aerosol art. Alex’s work centers around graffiti-inspired abstraction and layered collage. He currently leads the Textile and Screen printing program at Juxtaposition Arts and teaches aerosol art classes to young people during the summer. Alex’s mural work focuses on futuristic placemaking and adding new layers and representation to the visual landscape of the Twin Cities.
Kao Lee Thao
 @kaoleethao | innerswirl.com
Kao Lee Thao is the visual artist and 3D animator behind Inner Swirl, where she taps into the subconscious and releases hidden inner swirls in paintings. All of her inspirations come from her dreams and personal experiences. With every stroke she leaves behind a window into her soul, hoping to spark inspiration in others to transport viewers to a world of fantasy, reminding us not to forget what imagination can accomplish in life.
Thomasina Topbear
@tomierae | fewandfarwomen.com/tomie
Thomasina Topbear is a self-taught Santee Dakota and Oglala Lakota muralist. She has been a member of the international all detail crew Few & Far Women since 2015. She helped found City Mischief Murals, an all-BIPOC art collective in the Twin Cities. Thomasina’s inspirations come from her Indigenous culture and graffiti background. She uses these influences to express her feelings on community, social justice, culture, feminism, and togetherness.
Missy Whiteman
 @missy_whiteman | @going_back_home_
Missy Whiteman (Northern Arapaho and Kickapoo) is an Emmy-nominated writer, director, producer and multimedia artist. Whiteman understands her work to be a voice for her ancestors, their stories and ancestral wisdom. Her late father, Ernest Whiteman, influenced her work, with the gift of artistic vision and practice of art as ceremony.
While based in part in Indigenous traditional practices and perspectives, her work also addresses themes of historical genocide, loss of culture, and land in relation to colonization. Whiteman questions the connection of life, death, spirit world and the rebirth process of revitalizing DNA memory, spirit healing and redefinition of cultural identity.
Many of Missy’s films have screened in international, national, and local venues, such as the Walker Art Center, National Geographic All Roads Festival, and in Bilbao, Spain. Whiteman is a current recipient of the McKnight Fellowship for Media Arts, Hennepin Theatre Trust/All My Relations Digital Public Arts fellowship, 2020 Forecast Public Art Mid-Career fellow, and is an alum of the Sundance Native Lab Fellowship and Jerome Fellowship for her short film project The Coyote Way: Going Back Home.
Her current project, The Coyote Way X: Expanded Cinema is a multidimensional cinematic experience of The Coyote Way: Going Back Home short film intertwined with performance, live score, video mapping, and 360/VR.
 The Chroma Zone Mural & Art Festival is produced in partnership with creative consultant and arts leader for over 40 years, Forecast Public Art.
 "As a national organization, Forecast is concerned that many mural festivals continue to lag behind in ensuring full representation of BIPOC, womxn and non-binary artists and see a part of our role with Chroma Zone to disrupt the mural festival status quo. We thoughtfully select and recommend artists for walls, events, and educational opportunities through the lens of racial and gender equity. This year we are proud to have half of our artists identify as indigenous as we strive to build deeper relationships with indigenous artists through the festival."
—Theresa Sweetland, Forecast Executive Director
The 2021 Muralists will paint in a safe, socially distanced environment this summer at various locations in the Creative Enterprise Zone. Check our website chromazone.net for updates on mural locations and other festival events.
#Chromazonefest #CEZmsp #MakeItHere
2021 Chroma Zone Sponsors
2019 Chroma Zone logo mural painted byWes Winship, Burlesque of North America.
Chroma Zone kicks off with "Open Street" Celebration
@ Bradford & Endicott Streets, Saturday, May 22, 2021, 1 to 5 p.m.
Kick off a summer of murals at a free, outdoor family-friendly art and community event on the closed streets of Bradford and Endicott Streets in the CEZ.
DON'T MISS!
Live painting at the BANG IT! Mural Meet @ Bang Brewing (2320 Capp Rd.) and Urban Growler Brewing (2325 Endicott St.) featuring Focus Smith, Tom Jay, Daren Hill, Nu-One and Jordan Hamilton and curated by Peyton Scott Russell.
Live pottery-throwing demos and mug sale at Deneen Pottery (2325 Endicott St).
Live graffiti demos by advanced students of SPRAYFINGER.
Live sound performance by 2020 muralists BEATRIX*JAR from 2-4pm. (Also see their "Bird Enterprise Zone" mural at 2340 Charles Ave.)
Open House and Tenant Showcase at The Wycliff (2327 Wycliff St.). Discover the entrepreneurs and makers that call the industrial creative space home.
Street Mural Art Activity with ARTS+REC. Grab a brush and help us Chroma the street @ Endicott and Bradford St. with biodegradable cornstarch paint.
2021 Chroma Zone artists line-up. Discover the 10 local muralists selected to paint in the CEZ this summer. Can't wait? Read list and artist bios at chromazone.net/2021.
100 Tree Initiative - A CEZ greening project featuring gravel tree beds.
Food & Food Trucks - Eat on the patio @ Urban Growler Brewing, at Northern Fires Pizza @ Bang Brewing, and the food trucks BeatEats, Steven D's and Icy Icy Baby.
Local Beer Gardens @ local taprooms Bang Brewing (2320 Capp Rd) and Urban Growler Brewing (2325 Endicott St.).
Minnesota Art Cars - See the cars and the meet the creatives behind The Minnesota ArtCar + ArtBike Parade.
Self-directed Mural Tours (10+ within walking distance.) Pick up a free map at the CEZ booth and enjoy a socially distanced adventure.
Mural Bike Tour with volunteers from the Saint Paul Bike Coalition. Watch our website for how you can join a Saturday morning bike tour of 10+ murals in the CEZ.
And so much more! With free parking on residential streets, in the parking lot located at Bradford & Wycliff St. (across from Precision Coating), and behind The Wycliff building (enter off Wycliff St.)
RAIN OR SHINE. Bring a mask and allow plenty of room for a safe and socially distanced celebration.
2021 Chroma Zone In-Kind Partners & Associates
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